Tuesday, March 06, 2012

Companies Leaving California in Record Numbers

Orange County Register -- "In 2011, 254 California companies moved some or all of their work and jobs out of state, 26% more than in 2010, according to Irvine business consultant Joe Vranich who has been tracking these departures since 2009.

The pace is accelerating, Vranich said. An average of 4.9 businesses left California each week of 2011, compared to 3.9 per week (202 total) in 2010 and one a week (51 total) in 2009. In what he calls "disinvestment events," Vranich counts companies that move jobs, facilities or headquarters out of California and "in carefully selected instances, companies making major capital investments in plants elsewhere that in the past would have been built in California," Vranich said.

For all California departures, the top destinations were Texas, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada and a tie for Utah and Florida, Vranich said."

MP: All of the top destination states are right-t0-work states, except Colorado. California has the second highest state unemployment rate in the country at 11.2%, almost three full percent above the 8.3% national jobless rate.

Many middle class workers, including entrepreneurs, moved from California to Colorado starting around 1990.

Along with stronger U.S. disinflationary growth, that began to accelerate in 1995 and remained strong through 2007, the Colorado economy boomed.

The Denver Tech Center added and expanded about a hundred tech campuses, impressive new malls, and upper income housing tracts replaced empty fields all the way to the mountains in the west and Castle Rock in the south.

Denver, around 10 miles north, built three new pro sports stadiums, a new convention center, a huge central library, renovated the entire lower downtown (that looks like the 1920s when it was new), repaved the streets and rebuilt the sidewalks, built an international airport, a light rail system, etc.

However, the U.S. disinflationary boom from 1982-07 created many new businesses and communities throughout the country, including in new cities in California.

We always hear about employee rights, and rightly so. But we never hear about employer rights. What rights do employers have?

Since employers are people (and as Romney pointed out, Corporations are made up of people), employers should have the same rights as employees, but they also have property and contract rights.

The fed government is constantly eroding the rights of employers - the latest example is requiring employers to provide health care insurance coverage, which specifies what type of coverage must be provided (including free birth control). So imagine you "own" a business, and the government tells you that you must provide your employees with xyz. At some point, you have to ask in what way do you "own" the business?

I think things are ripe for arguing that the federal government is involved in regulatory takings - in other words, using eminent domain to take the property of companies. The constitution requires that if the fed government takes your property, they have to pay you for it.

California is a particularly egregious example of a state government taking away the rights and property of employers. As a result, employers don't want to be there.

give ti a little more time. the valley is not nearly so vibrant (nor unique) as it was and nearly half of SV start ups were founded by immigrants and current visa rules are wrecking that.

there are lots of new, lower cost tech centers in the US. none have the size, depth, or cache of SV yet, but they are gaining ground and the companies that succeed are looking to relocate in many cases. paying 11.7% on top of your cap gains is just not attractive.

Yo, Marko,It is funny that all you people out there grousing about govt requiring health coverage to include birth control medication (which, by the way, is often prescribed for things other than reproduction) are the VERY SAME ONES SUPPORTING THE GOVT CONTROL OF relationships between same sex couples or with women's right to choose or even the right of individuals to acquire toys for their own pleasure and use in the privacy of their own homes! (See state laws regarding this in AL, TX, etc.)Talk about inconsistent. You hate govt interference UNLESS it SUITS YOUR NARROWMINDED IDEAS, then you are ALL FOR IT!!!! The more government control, the better then, eh?